Dr VV Muthusamy: He Changed the Course of My Life

Some people enter our lives quietly and, before we realise it, they change us forever.
Dr. V. V. Muthusamy (VVM) was such a presence in my life.
To the world, he was Madurai’s first cardiologist, a distinguished clinician, teacher, academician — a man of stature in Indian medicine. To me, he was something far more personal: my teacher, my guide, my family doctor, and at many critical moments, the unseen hand that held me steady.
My association with him began in my student years at Madurai Medical College. He taught me then, but he was already associated with my family. My father, Thiru MS Chellamuthu, a senior PWD civil engineer, was in charge of construction at the Rajaji hospital . Dr. VVM was then the ARMO (Assistant Resident Medical Officer). Hence, he would often meet my father to discuss about the developments to be carried out in the hospital. Long before I understood it, Dr. Muthusamy had become part of the landscape of our lives.
It was he who intervened gently but firmly when I stood uncertain about my future. I was torn between disciplines: cardio thoracic surgery, ENT, or psychiatry. He advised me against cardiothoracic surgery and ENT and encouraged me instead towards psychiatry. He saw — long before it became widely acknowledged — how essential mental health would become to the future of medicine. he took me to Dr.G.V founder of Aravind Eye Hospital to decide about my future , That one conversation altered the trajectory of my life.
Then came a period when life seemed intent on dismantling everything.
I lost my father. I lost my brother and my cousin o tragic road accidents, within a short span. And as I struggled to retain my balance in grief, my daughter Selvi met with a serious fire accident and had to be hospitalised.
My body, too, began to falter under the weight of it all. I underwent an emergency appendectomy. Soon after, I suffered a fracture following an accident. And then came the most frightening episode — an abnormal ECG, a suspected cardiac event, and the real fear that my own heart was failing.
For a while, my condition was so fragile that Dr Muthusamy converted my home itself into an ICU of sorts. I lived under constant observation, suspended between anxiety and uncertainty. Throughout this, Dr. Muthusamy did not treat me as a colleague. He treated me as family.
Without hesitation, he took me to Chennai to consult his own revered teacher, the legendary cardiologist Dr. C. Thanikachalam at Apollo Hospitals. Getting an appointment with him was never easy — yet he ensured that everything happened swiftly. An angiogram was performed the next day. Structurally, my heart was found to be normal. What had collapsed was not the heart muscle, but the human being carrying too much grief for too long.
During those days, Dr. Thanikachalam received continuous phone calls from Madurai — doctors, colleagues, senior members of society — all asking after my health. That outpouring of concern revealed something else too: the quiet web of respect and goodwill that I had built over a lifetime.
Dr. Thanikachalam understood the deeper diagnosis. And it was he who insisted that healing could not come from medicine alone. He referred me to Dr. T. K. V. Desikachar, the well-known yoga therapist and teacher. I went hesitantly. Like many allopathic doctors, I was sceptical. Yet that encounter became a turning point. Through yoga, breath, and stillness, I began to understand that healing must be holistic — that the mind, body, and spirit must be addressed together.
That understanding reshaped my life and profoundly influenced my work in psychiatry.
Dr. Muthusamy believed deeply in what medicine ought to be.
He taught that a doctor must be simple.
That one must listen more than speak.
That empathy matters as much as expertise.
That accessibility, affordability, and dependability are ethical commitments, not optional virtues.
He believed every patient is a teacher. Every symptom a lesson. Every failure an opportunity to learn.
He even believed that the way a hospital welcomes its patients matters — because when a patient smiles, healing has already begun.
These were not ideals he spoke of. They were values he lived.
With his passing on January 8, 2026, we have lost more than a senior physician. We have lost a way of being a doctor.
I remain who I am today, in many ways, because he walked beside me when I could not walk alone.
Some teachers educate.
Some mentors guide.
But a rare few quietly shape the architecture of another life.
Dr. V. V. Muthusamy was such a presence. May his memory continue to live gently in every life he touched — including mine.
My heartfelt condolence to his family including his son and daughter, both of whom are doctors.